(Obviously,
we know more about the suspects at this point than we did when I wrote this
column. So far I’ve seen nothing to change my conclusions.)

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

"When I was a boy and I
would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for
the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day,
especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words and I am always
comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring
people in this world." – Fred Rogers

More good
words from Mr. Rogers, words to live by. Maybe the biggest thing we should take
from the Boston Marathon terrorist attack is that there are still way more good
people than bad. Fire, police, EMS, National Guard, marathon officials, and
bystanders with no responsibility whatsoever raced forward to help. The good
people of the world are of every stripe – all colors, religions or lack of one,
every spectrum of political viewpoint.

For every
bad guy and every person who doesn’t want to get involved, there are still
hundreds who will and do. The world is full of good people; it’s just that the
bad ones make more noise, and more headlines.

Unfortunately,
that wasn’t my first thought on waking up to discover innocents have been
attacked again. My reaction can be best summed up by a movie quote, one that
I’ve used before under similar circumstances:

“Mr.
Rat... I have a writ here says you're to stop eating Chen Lee's cornmeal
forthwith. Now it's a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of
the same. See? Doesn't pay any attention to me.” (Rooster Cogburn shoots the
rat.)

I suspect the rest of this column
won’t sound terribly original, either.

Some people – and I use the word
“people” loosely – aren’t stopped by the idea that their unique, psychotic form
of hatred puts them in the minority. On the contrary, their hatred is
especially keen toward those they see as helping their enemies. You know,
enemies, like 8-year-old children.

These “people” take great delight
in the use of secondary devices: bombs that go off some time after the initial
attack, designed to kill and hurt as many first responders and good Samaritans
as possible.

All the good will in the world
isn’t going to deter these animals. They like to kill. No matter what reason they
give, what cause they claim to fight for, in the end they love causing pain and
destruction.

You can’t argue for them to see the
right, because they’re certain they’re in the right. You’re not going to stop
them with diplomacy or reason. You’re not going to appeal to their better
nature, because they have none.

You can’t serve papers on a rat.

And you can’t let the rat be, not
if it continues coming after you, determined to take what’s yours: Your
property, your family, your freedom, your life. You can’t live in harmony with
something that wants to destroy your world.

You have to kill it.

That’s not a political commentary.
I’m not suggesting what needs to be done to keep more people like that from
coming along. Once they get to the point where they’re killing innocent people
in the belief that it furthers their cause, they should no more be reasoned
with than people who kill others for fun. They’re rabid animals that need to be
put down.

That’s it.

Mr. Rogers would likely not
approve, and I understand that. Maybe he and I are on the same page as to how
we should treat most people. No matter where they are or where they’re from, we
should start from a standpoint of humanity. Do the right thing, treat others as
you wish to be treated, better yourself and your community.

But part of bettering your
community is defending it from evil.

Evil is what this is.

I don’t care what bad thing
happened to these monsters in the past. I don’t care if they were economically
downtrodden, or if they have a beef with America for any reason. Once you start
murdering people just because they happen to be standing there, you’re evil.
Period. You give up the right to be considered anything but a threat that needs
to be dealt with. You’re a rat.

Notice I didn’t mention who
actually committed this act, or why, or what, if anything, they represent. I
don’t know. As of this writing nobody does, including those who are speculating
anyway. I want to know their reasons, yes, but only to hunt down their
followers and keep it from happening again. A scumbag is a scumbag, no matter
what cause they wrap themselves in.

We should celebrate and support the
good people who will always be there to help, but also protect them where we
can, just as we should protect our children, our communities, our liberties,
and our nation. There will always be someone trying to take those from us, and
when we have to choose between what we hold precious and the rats trying to
swarm over us, there’s really no choice.

I had to stop taking meds for awhile due to upcoming allergy
testing. It’s made me realize that the only thing worse than having to be on a
medication all the time is not having that medication.

Emily's doing ... well, maybe better isn't the word, she's still
pretty sickly and worn down. She's sleeping at the moment, and I've
stopped sneezing long enough to make some chicken noodle soup for when
she wakes up.

It's been a bit of a difficult 24 hours here in the Hunter household. We took Emily to the doctor yesterday afternoon with abdominal pain, and after a great deal of poking and prodding he sent us to the ER, where we spent the next five or so hours. The fun part: All those tests that have come back so far have all been negative. They sent us home with instructions for pain pills and a clear liquid diet, and it was a loooong night, although she seems to be feeling better now. (I'm about to go wake her up.)

As it usual with our family, more tests and doctor visits to come. This was, I believe, the fifth ER visit/hospital stay for one of four family members since mid-winter. When I walk in, the staff all calls out, "Mark!" and I take my regular seat.

One thing I find interesting about
history is the way things come together in unexpected ways.

Yes, I find history interesting.
That hasn’t done me much good – I always seemed doomed to repeat myself, anyway
– but as spending time goes it beats the heck out of smoking pot, watching
grass grow (the other grass, not pot), or a scintillating episode of “Water
Polo With The C-List Celebrities”.

I like history so much that I
actually wrote a history book, which you’ll hear a whole bunch more about later
because it comes out this summer. I don’t presume to be an expert historian, so
much of it is set during the town of Albion’s early history, where the
witnesses are dead and so can’t call me on my mistakes.

It seems like every day of research
I stumbled across something new, such as the connection between my own home and
Albion’s first fire chief, the story behind Albion’s first recorded
fire-related injury, and the effect of reading newspaper microfilm for hours at
a time on eye strain. Most recently, I learned that the Churubusco Fire
Department was organized at almost the same time as Albion’s was, and that they
bought their first firefighting equipment from the same New York company – a
company that earlier advertised in the newspaper I now work for.

I don’t care who you are, that’s
cool.

Recently Darlene Bender put together
Albion’s first mural, if you don’t count the one I created in crayon across my
bedroom wall. And boy, was my wife upset about that. (By the way, if memory
serves, Darlene’s sister once got an award for saving an Albion woman from a
fire. There you go on the connection thing.)

I was asked if I had anything to
contribute to the mural, but didn’t have any photos going back far enough. I
didn’t think too much about it after that, until I saw an article about the
mural and realized – there’s a theme going, here – that there were many
connections between it and the history of fire in Albion, which just happens to
be what my book is about.

Let’s take a look, shall we? Oh,
come on, I won’t write on you with crayon:

Naturally, one of the scenes is of
the current Noble County Courthouse, which has quite literally loomed high in
Albion’s skyline for … well, let’s see … looks like it was built during the
same period in which the Albion Volunteer Fire Department was being organized.
The first courthouse built at that site was destroyed by – wait for it – fire,
a story I relate in my book Smoky Days
and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With The Albion Fire Department. Which
from now on I’ll shorten to Smoky Days,
because it’s, well, shorter.

The mural depicts a scene in which a
carnival Ferris Wheel stands in the foreground. A similar Wheel, in use during
the town of Albion’s centennial celebration, figures into another story of the
Albion Fire Department, which I shall now shorten to AFD. (See above.)

Also shown is the Worden House, a
hotel that stood on the Courthouse square where the Corner Stop (Hey, I still
call it that) convenience store now stands. That building came very close to
being replaced years earlier than it did, in a story that figures in to family,
fire and ice, and the Civil War.

(Notice I don’t actually tell you the stories? Hey, I’ll have a
book to sell, and it’s all in there.)

Another scene is of the Albion Opera
House, which still stands on the north side of the Courthouse square. The
reason it’s standing? The volunteers of the AFD, after an incident that
happened the same year that they received their first motorized fire truck.

Then there’s the scene of the Atwood
Buggy Factory, one of Albion’s early big industries, which I’m going to assume
built buggies. This one’s an epic fail for me, because I did not include its story in the book, even
though it burned in 1905 in its location just blocks from my home. Maybe in the
second edition.

Hey, we all miss stuff.

Another scene: Albion’s train depot,
which is where at least one, and almost certainly more, of Albion’s new fire
apparatus were delivered back in the day. The initial construction of the
railroad in Albion brought something else with it: the man who would one day be
Albion’s first Fire Chief.

And so it goes. The mural is going
to be installed on the side of the Black Building, at the corner of Main and
Orange streets near the center of town. That structure, a three story brick,
only exists because fire swept away the wooden building that once stood there –
and took with it much of the rest of the block, which allowed room for the
eventual construction of Albion’s second fire station.

Oh, and one more thing:

The AFD is celebrating its 125th
anniversary on July 20th this year, because that’s a workable date
for bringing the most people in to join in the festivities. But the actual,
official anniversary of the fire department, thanks to an ordinance passed by
the Albion Town Board, was May 4th, 1888.

The mural is planned to be up in
time for Albion’s First Friday activities in May … May 3rd, the day
before the AFD turns 125.

I'm too full of rage to talk about the Boston Marathon tragedy right
now. Instead, as this was already National Telecommunicators Week, I'd
ask that you take a moment to send thoughts and prayers to the 911
operators/dispatchers of the Boston area. These men and women, already
stressed by a major event in their city, are among the unsung heroes who
have to hold it together when everything is falling apart.

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you
were a member of Congress. And suppose you set controlled burns, but didn’t
keep an eye on them. But I repeat myself.”
- Mark Twain

Okay, folks … let’s go over it
again.

Many years ago, when I was a rookie
volunteer firefighter, we showed up at the scene of a large ground cover fire.
Ground cover, in that case, meant it was burning through fields on three sides
of a house, all the way to the ditches along the roadside. Only the shortness
of the grass kept the flames from sweeping over the lawn and setting fire to
the house – something that actually did happen to another place last summer.

We pounded on the door to alert the
occupants of the danger. A guy came to the door, wrapped in a towel, and
explained that it was a controlled burn and he didn’t need us. He had been
“controlling” the burn from the comfort of his bathtub.

What he needed was a controlled iron
skillet to the side of his head.

Spring in Indiana is one of those
times when everything blooms: flowers, allergies, columns of smoke, everything.
Between the time the snow melts and the time all the foliage starts greening
up, property owners have a window of opportunity to burn off various areas
where they want to get rid of old, dead stuff, like weeds and last year’s
election signs. If done properly under the right conditions, there’s minimal
danger to anyone who doesn’t have a lung condition.

Even then there’s always the chance
of an unexpected change in wind direction or speed, or the all-too-familiar
scenario of someone just not understanding how fast fire can spread. It’s like
me working on my plumbing. (My home’s plumbing, I mean.) I know the risks, I
think it’s under control, and it explodes in my face. Sometimes literally.

As with my home maintenance
attempts, sometimes simple little grass fires almost get me killed.

Grass fire season here in northern
Indiana is relatively minor. We don’t have the explosive underbrush of southern
California, or the huge, inaccessible forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Sometimes, in a particularly wet spring, we hardly get a grass fire season at
all. Other times, as with last summer, things stay dry and the danger stretches
on into the summer.

Often, in both cases, the fires just
get away from the people who start them, and it takes a little help to stomp
them out. It’s also not uncommon for us to pull up and find dozens of acres,
vehicles, barns, homes and, once or twice, people burning.

I’ll tell you a little secret: I’ve
always liked fighting grass fires. It dates back to my younger days, when I
lived to put the blue stuff on the red stuff. I found a chance to do it with
fires that burned across fields, meadows, and woods, but rarely did major
property damage. It was exciting, but not terribly tragic … usually.

But time goes on, and you see
things. Almost getting killed never bothered me all that much, because I’m not
that smart; seeing others almost get killed, or lose their homes, did. The
easiest fire to fight is one that never starts.

Which brings me back to my point.

Having a controlled burn on your
property is not brain surgery. It smells way worse. Or maybe not, what do I
know? But the number one rule of both is that if you don’t have to, or if it’s
more dangerous than it’s worth, don’t do it.

The number two rule is to call your
local police agency – around here usually the Sheriff Department – and let them
know about your controlled burn. This prevents false alarms, in which a bunch
of angry firefighters show up at your door ready to drown you in your own
bathtub. Once they get there, half will be angry that it’s a false alarm, and
the other half upset because they don’t get to put a fire out.

The number three rule is to figure
out how much fire you can control, and what you need to control it with. Once,
when I was driving out in the country, I topped a rise and saw the ditch
burning on both sides of the road and both side of the cross road, literally as
far as I could see. People, if it’s just you, a broom, and an ATV, and you’ve
set a fire line eight miles long, you do not have a “controlled” burn.
Keep it small, and have lots of water, shovels, brooms, fire extinguishers, and
cell phones.

The number four rule is to burn
against the breeze, so the fire can’t spread rapidly, and to not burn at all if
the wind is too strong. Considering how grass fire and tornado seasons come so
close together here, I can only imagine that sooner or later they’ll combine
into one spectacular, almost Biblical twister of flames. I’d better copyright
that idea before SyFy gets ahold of it.

(My wife informs me that SyFy has,
indeed, already produced a movie on this subject. *sigh*)

The number five rule is don’t wait
too long before calling for help if things get out of hand. Don’t worry about
being embarrassed … do I get embarrassed when I have to call for help as water
from my sink sprays into an electrical outlet? Well … yes, but still.